Kenwood breaks into flower

The bigger bushes around east end of the lawns are already in full bloom making a dramatic backdrop for Barbara Hepworth – and bringing the amateur photographers out in force. A little further round to the right the pale pink and white bushes take over, swaying gently in the breeze.

However, you do wonder whether the Kenwood gardeners were not a bit too enthusiastic in their pruning of the two islands of bushes that sit between Barbara Hepworth and the rest of the lawn by the house.

While some of them have responded to their haircut enthusiastically, some have only put forth a few spindly shoots, and some look as dead as a doornail.

Elsewhere on the heath some wigwam builders have been at work.

And right down near Parliament Hill is one of my favourite trees.

Because it grows in a small grove of equally magnificent trees on the way across to the hill, it obviously decided early on that growing branches towards its fellows was not a promising route so it would only grow banches out towards the tree free scrub land. This means that it shoud be completely unbalanced. But not only does it stand firmly upright but, seemingly to compensate for the lack of branches to the east, these westerly branches are nearly twice as long as those of its fellow trees. How strong must that joint between trunk a branch be to support that weight?

And finally, a little apple blossom from my garden. The apple tree is about the only thing that remains intact in the garden at the moment (as you can see from the image below taken from an upstairs window) – but I have great hopes….